Page:A grammar of the Teloogoo language.djvu/157



Teloogoo verbs are of four kinds; neuter, active, passive, and causal.

These verbs are divided into two parts, the affirmative, and the negative; and each of these two parts has an indicative mood, an imperative mood, participles, and a verbal noun. The affirmative verb has an infinitive, but the negative verb has none.

INDICATIVE.

The indicative mood, in the affirmative verb, has, properly, only four 304 tenses ; the present, the past, the future, and the aorist. In the negative verb, the aorist is the only tense. Each of these tenses has two numbers, the singular and the plural ; and in each number there are three persons; but there is no distinction of gender, except in the third person. In the singular number of most of the tenses, the third person masculine is distinguished from the third person feminine and neuter, both of which are the same. In the plural, the third person masculine and feminine are one ; and the neuter is, in general, different from both. In a few cases, however, the third person is the same for all genders. C3 ^

IMPERATIVE.

The imperative has two numbers ; the singular and the plural. This mood, in the affirmative verb, has two persons ; the 2d in the singular, and the 1st and 2<1 in the plural. In the negative verb, it has the 2d person only in each number.

PARTICIPLES.

The participles are of two distinct kirtds : the one we shall denominate verbal, and the othei 1 rekitive, participles. The affirmative verb hag two verbil participles ; the present and (lie past, 307